


i make sparks

by perennial



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Canon Divergence, Classism, F/M, I live for the drama, Non-Canon Relationship, Post-Canon, Sickbed, The rarest pair, heartbreak with a happy ending, love between the social classes, rarepairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22356346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: He's learning about her. Real things, marrow and muscle, and he lines them up carefully, a row of diamonds on black velvet, stars in the constellation of her he's piecing together.
Relationships: Esther Denham/James Stringer, background Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	i make sparks

**Author's Note:**

> [[novo amor](https://youtu.be/Z_9V_GyVIiI)]

The first time James Stringer thinks of Esther Denham as a person, singular in and of herself instead of a vague figure swelling the crowd that swarms around Lady Denham, is when he takes the steps of the pagoda by twos and finds her seated within.

How ironic, he'll think later, that the first emotion she ever inspires in him is disappointment.

She is staring out at the sea, watching the gathering clouds that portend an incoming storm. All of her face but her sulky mouth is shadowed by her hat; she is dressed in dark emerald green that lends her the appearance of a mermaid, one water-tossed and washed up on the beachfront.

During Sanditon's offseason the shore boardwalk is quiet. He had counted on the pagoda being empty; to discover an interloper within is rather frustrating, as it's the expectation of an hour spent out here with his thoughts and pencils that has carried him through a long, difficult day; but he was raised by his father, and Isaac Stringer didn't do things by halves.

"Pardon me, miss," he says, hat off his head in an instant. "I didn't see you there. I'll just be off."

She turns indifferent eyes on him.

"No need. I've invaded your haven, I see." She is looking at the sketchbook he clutches. "I'll go. This place means nothing to me. I simply wanted to see it from the inside." She stands.

"Obliged, miss. It's kind of you."

"Kind," she repeats, as if questioning its applicability. They adjust around each other, him stepping inside as she moves toward the steps. She is pale as a creature of the deepest ocean; her freckles stand out starkly against the white.

"Beg pardon, but are y'unwell, miss?"

"I'm perfectly fine," she says without emotion. "Just nursing a broken heart. I will recover."

"Aye," he says. "I had one of me own of late." He would offer his sympathy if he weren't sure she has no interest whatsoever in receiving it.

She stops, glances at him. "And did you find a cure?"

He smiles wide. "Cliff walks. Nothing better to clear the head and the heart."

She looks at him steadily, her expression unchanging, and he turns to stone in the beam of her gaze, with the oddest sense that her eyes are cutting him open and exposing all his vital organs. He has never felt stripped like this: as though every inch of his skin has been dipped in salt wash and exposed to the sun, as though she is able to turn him transparent and see everything that swims through the depths of him.

She finishes her assessment and begins to turn away. Evidently she has not found him wanting; or, if she does, she doesn't remark on it. "I thank you." She pauses. "Mr. Stringer, isn't it?"

"Yes, miss."

"I remember you from the cricket. Good day to you then, Mr. Stringer."

"And to you, miss."

She departs. James settles in with his sketches, the sea wind tugging at his hair, his mind full of columns and archways.

-

He is at the building site the next day, holding up those same sketches against the physical versions, when Robinson calls _Stringer_ and inclines his head downwards. James discovers a woman in burgundy brocade and folded hands standing in the street looking up at him. He swings down the platform ladder.

"I remain uncured," she tells him.

"Then you didn't do it right," he answers, half a breath before he remembers to whom he is speaking.

Her eyes betray faint intrigue. Her bow-perfect lips part to say: "Then you'll have to show me."

-

The wind tears at her dress and blows his curls into his eyes. It tosses the grass to and fro; miles of green undulate like ocean waves.

"What happened? Why didn't your sweetheart want you?"

Blunt, but not abrasive. He likes people who don't care to waste his time or their own. "She already loved another."

"Yes," she says. "It's the only thing that makes sense." Her shoulders are hunched, braced against the wind. "Is he as good as you?"

"Good at stonemasonry?"

"Good-hearted."

"He's my better in many ways."

She guffaws. "Yesterday I sized you up. You noticed, I think. I thought to myself, here's one of those that are so good all the way through that it swells all the way up to the surface. There's nothing to sift through or pry open."

"I'm no better than anyone, miss."

Her laughter is a brittle sound in the sea-silk air. "If you knew."

They clear the dip in the path and gain a long flat stretch of clifftop. The pulse of the wind isn't so strong here; it caresses his cheek like a siren to a sailor.

"And you? What fool made the mistake of tossing away your 'eart?"

She doesn't speak. They walk a good twenty steps. He's starting to wonder if he should start making apologies when she says, "I was in love with a man—a version of him. He wore many faces, and as it happened, the face I loved was a false one." Her tone is matter-of-fact. Her eyes are fixed on the hill ahead of them. "There was another man who was kind to me. I didn't love him, but he made me remember parts of myself I'd forgotten. I believed we could be happy. But he was only keen for the chase, and when I finally relented, he found a loophole and withdrew his suit." He wonders if she really is as impassive as she sounds—as her face would have him believe. "The man I loved never existed. The man I accepted… I knew what he was, and still I let him advance. So who am I grieving, Mr. Stringer? Who is to blame for the state of my heart? I'm inclined to think it must be myself."

"I don't know, miss. They both sound like scoundrels to me."

She smiles. "You'd have made a very gallant knight, back in the days of King Arthur and Camelot."

"Thank you, very much, miss."

Her laugh is more bell-like, this time; it catches on the wind and is carried high and distant. "Spoken as one who has been the target of one too many flirtations. I am not flirting, Mr. Stringer. It was meant as a sincere compliment, I assure you."

"Then I thank you sincerely, miss, for I value your good opinion."

The corners of her mouth flick up briefly. "One of the few."

Later he can't imagine what possessed him. "If you'll permit me, Miss Denham. Any man lucky enough to find himself the recipient of your hand or your heart is a fool if he doesn't know their worth."

"Someone _like_ me. Given by someone such as me."

He frowns at her, puzzled by the correction. "No. You. Yourself."

"I'm not that valuable, Mr. Stringer." She sounds angry, almost. Irritated, as though he ought to know this.

"Who's made you believe such a thing? The liars you just told me of? You think the one truth they spoke was their assessment of your value?" He looks at her: straight-backed, head up, burgundy against the pale green. He marks her unpracticed, wind-resistant confidence. "But why should I tell you they're wrong, Miss Denham? You know it as well as I do."

Her head finally turns his way—her pointed chin slanting as she evaluates his words, the white of her teeth visible between her parted lips—and he meets her gaze steadily, pinned though he is by her barracuda-sharp eyes.

"You do talk nonsense, Mr. Stringer," she says eventually. "But you were right about the walk."

-

The sand is cool under his palms. He rubs the cricket ball against the cloth of his trousers to clean it off. The shouts of the players mingle with the screams and calls of the soaring gulls. The wind is busy but cut through by the sun; he's sweating from exertion exacerbated by the warmth of the day.

A red-headed figure in blue is out for a stroll with her maid; they make their way up the grassy hill path that slopes slowly to one of the seaside bluffs.

He lifts an arm in acknowledgement. High on the hillside, she mirrors the gesture.

-

He bounds up the steps of the pagoda into its dim sheltering shade and comes to a halt. Miss Denham is ensconced on one of the benches that rim the porch, ankles crossed; she holds a book at an angle that keeps its pages free from the grip of the breeze. He reads the spine: Mrs. Radcliffe.

She doesn't look up. "I'm staying."

A little kernel of gold settles itself between his ribs. He takes a seat on the stretch of bench to her right.

"I hoped you would."

She still doesn't look up, but the corners of her mouth lift.

-

"Miss Denham!"

She stops and turns toward him, forcing the crowd in the street to part around her and her maid like sea swells round an island. He waves from his worktable, places a rock on the building plans, and jogs up to her. A smile ripples across her face, swift and uncertain as a sandpiper.

"The cornices we discussed. I wanted you to see them. There they are." He points to the roofline of the building before them, where his men are busy at their various labors. "You were right about them needing to be deeper. Now, if you look here, round the corner—"

The smile returns to her face; this time it stays.

-

A knock at his door. He opens it to a figure in lavender. Suddenly he's smiling so big his heart might escape out his body.

"I've come to see if you want company. If you don't, send me away again."

"Your company is always welcome," he replies, opening the door wider for her to step inside. A hint of lilac follows her in. "But I'm afraid the setting is far more humble than what you're accustomed to."

"One can become accustomed to anything." She looks around. "Truthfully, your house is far homier than any I've ever been in. A touch warmer, too." He's surprised by the relief her approval gives rise to. She bends to scratch behind the ears of his sheepdog, who is greeting her like a long lost friend. "I heard about your father," she says, straightening. "That was a terrible night. I'm ashamed I've never offered my condolences."

"Thank you, miss. I wish you could have known him. _Down_ , Hercules." He ushers her to a chair. "Tea in a moment. I've just put the kettle on."

She sits—briefly—then stands again to examine his bookshelves. "Are these yours?"

"A few. My father was the reader. I wish I had his patience."

"Shakespeare. Philosophers," she notes, tilting her head. "I've never read any of them either. It's novels for me." She peruses the collection, pulling some out for closer inspection, while he clears his sketches and building plans and pencils off the fireside table.

He brings the tea tray over. She picks up the sugar tongs and lifts her brows at him. "Two for me," he smiles at her. She busies herself with pouring.

"No wonder you are who you are. A father like that, a home like this."

He takes the cup she hands him. "There's nothing so unique about it, miss."

"There is to me," she says quietly. "My aunt's house is built of marble and gold. She wears diamonds every day."

The ruby at her throat sparkles in the firelight and throws tiny gleaming rainbows onto the walls. James looks at the rough boards under his feet. The faded rug that lies before the stove was hand-knotted by his mother. "Sounds like a palace."

"Or a prison." He looks up. She is staring into the fire. Her cup and saucer rest on her lap, held in both of her lace-coated hands; her smile is gone. She looks at him. "What jewels wouldn't I trade to know I was loved every day of my life?"

Then her chin clenches and she says, "Never mind." She lifts her cup to her lips.

Somehow, despite the lavender and lilac and the freckles bridging her nose, she is suddenly as alien and unknown as she was the day of their first encounter at the pagoda. How does one comfort a mermaid?—wrap his arms around her cold, wet skin and hope she won't writhe her way out of his embrace? Hold tight and hope his warmth sinks in all the way to her heart before she can claw free?

"Surely, your brother," he says unthinking. She blanches. James would swallow pearls to unspeak his words.

"I wondered when that would come up. Whatever you've heard, it's all true."

He has heard rumors: slimy, twisting words that lose substance when held up to the woman sitting here beside his fire in a room swept free of shadows by the clear sea air. "You don't have to tell me anything, Miss Denham."

She makes a restless movement with her shoulder. She won't look at him. "You don't want to know. I don't blame you."

"No, you misunderstand me, truly. I've an ear for anything you want to say. But you're under no obligation to say a word."

"We did nothing wrong. In the eyes of men, perhaps, but not in the eyes of God. He wasn't my brother by blood."

And with that he knows, sharp as an sea urchin spine through his foot, the name of the false man she loved. And he remembers, bile roiling in his stomach like ocean flotsam in a storm, the moment when that same brother exposed her, at the Midsummer ball: the night he danced with Charlotte as his father lay dying, as her eyes sought another man's even as he, James, held her in his arms. He remembers the way the light had gone out of Miss Denham's entire body, because he had thought to himself at the time that must be what he looked like after Charlotte vanished with Sidney Parker. And then Robinson had grabbed his shoulder and said those words that even now he can't bear to repeat to himself, and the rest of his world had fallen apart, and he had never again thought about the woman who lost her light until now.

She has been watching his face. "Now you recall," she says, bitter as oversteeped tea, and stands, placing her cup on the table in one fluid motion.

He's on his feet in an instant, his hands reaching out of their own accord and clasping hers. Her gloves are soft and ridgy under his palms. "Wait," he says. "Wait. You think I blame you for trusting a man you ought to have been able to trust? You think I blame you for finding solace in the man who promised to keep you safe from him?" He has long since been in possession of the facts of Miss Denham's broken engagement; the Purcell sisters are prone to chatter. "I wish I had spoken at the time."

"Yes? And what would you have said?" She is lofty and cool in her panic.

"Only made sure you knew you weren't alone."

"That's where you're wrong." She pulls out of his grasp—easily, he only wanted to arrest her movement, not detain her—and steps toward the door.

"Never, Miss Denham." He clenches his jaw, willing her to hear him.

She pauses at the open door and looks at him. "I don't have time for false sympathy."

"I offer none."

The breeze ripples the ribbons on her hat. "I'm sick to death of pretense."

"Am I a man of pretense?

"Are you?" she flings back.

"You tell me. I wouldn't know how to start knowing." He stands straight, still as coral, jaw tight.

She looks over her shoulder out the door, her face tight in the way faces turn when they're stifling a strong emotion. She is hardly flesh and blood anymore, this woman. She's barnacles and crab shells, barely visible under the layers of armor.

He says, "If you're alone then so am I."

Her neck twists toward him. He watches the words register as she looks at him, solitary man in a lonely house, everyone he loves departed or dead.

And herself, in the room with him.

She swallows.

"Perhaps," she begins, and stops.

"Perhaps," she tries again, "I am mistaken."

The tension recedes from his shoulders. He scratches his neck. "I should expect you'd need something sweet to chase such an admission." The look she gives him is severe but he only smiles, unshaken. He gestures to her abandoned teacup with an arm wide and open, parting the floodwaters she loosed.

She wavers, then caves. He settles himself back into his seat and inhales the trace of lilac that spins through the air in her wake. Her eyes rest on him as she lifts her cup to her lips.

-

She takes her tea with cream, one sugar.

Her favorite novel is titled _Evelina_. She doesn't care for poetry. Lilacs remind her of her mother and meerschaum pipes remind her of her father and mink hats remind her of her step-brother. The gargoyles in the church cornices have provided her a lifetime of nightmares. She knows the genus and species of every sort of fowl that inhabits her land. If she were a man she would go to St. James' Palace and become the keeper of the savage Crown swans; like knows like, she says.

She dreams of traveling to a place where the seawater is warm as a bath and one spends the whole day in it, floating in the sunshine. She would dig her toes into the sand to anchor herself and stretch out her arms until she was warm all the way to her bones. She would wear her hair loose and let it float around her in a cloud, twining round her throat like seaweed, like the naiads in the old stories.

The fire of her temper is quiet and smoldering. When she laughs her eyes turn ember-bright.

He's learning about her. Real things, marrow and muscle, and he lines them up carefully, a row of diamonds on black velvet, stars in the constellation of her he's piecing together.

-

Lady Denham dies and leaves the bulk of her fortune to Sanditon. Tom Parker receives the news with a gasp of relief, guiltily followed by a few words of regard; but James is no less relieved. He can look his men square in the eyes, now, without thinking about the noose Sidney Parker put his own neck into to feed their children, and of Charlotte, distant and silent, her own neck in the noose through no choice of her own.

James worries over the funeral for a few days before learning that all the town will attend. He polishes his boots, which doesn't make a marked difference, and brushes his best coat.

At the graveside, he reflects that Miss Denham would stand as though carved from marble were she in the midst of a raging hurricane.

The highbrows in attendance claim her attention with their condolences and reminiscences. Her mouth barely opens to answer them. Her eyes are as revealing as the mirror surface of a lake.

It's hardly appropriate for him to approach her here, but he wants to offer what comfort he may, so he stands across from her, divided from her by the yawning pit of her aunt's final resting place, so that he is easy to locate in the crowd.

Her eyes find him within seconds. They barely leave him for the whole of the service. He stands steady, though he's unsettled by the look in her eyes. She doesn't look comforted. She looks at him as though she stands on a ship sailing toward a stormcloud horizon and he is the disappearing shore.

-

A few days after the funeral he drops in at the manor and finds her listlessly pulling dead roseheads off the bushes in the garden.

"I'll come back later if you'd rather be alone."

"Your company is always welcome, but I'm afraid you'll find mine poor indeed."

He offers condolences and finds them waved away.

"I'm hardly mourning my aunt. She was a little more pleasant to me toward the end, but it doesn't make up for years of miserliness and insults. Money is poison, Mr. Stringer." She slashes unhappily at an unassuming rosebush with her scissors. "And yet—it is also food and shelter."

They walk along the shaded path that runs beside the pond. It's a pretty spot, all green and sunny, with an energetic fountain to fill the silence. She did not exaggerate when she said she would make poor company. He can hardly get a word out of her.

"Your mind is elsewhere this morning."

She rouses herself. "Yes. It is in London. Specifically, it is with Tellhait and Sons, Bankers. Even more specifically, in the meager vault which holds the scant remnants of my inheritance."

"Surely your aunt left you something."

"She was very generous. And quite cunning. I can't access a cent of her fortune for another five years. She knew the state of my finances and she knew they will not see me out the year, let alone five. She means to force me into marriage. I have yet to strike upon an alternate means of survival."

He breathes in. Out. "The house."

"The house will be sold; the profit will go to Tom Parker's town, as stipulated."

"A lady's companion."

"An excellent idea, but I have no references, and, since my aunt's death, no connections—not the sort that are crucial in securing such a position."

"Would it be too humbling to be a governess?"

"No; but I was a dreadful student and would make an even more dreadful teacher. The fact is, Mr. Stringer, that unlike you I haven't a single useful skill."

"You're an accomplished lady."

"I will grant you that." She ticks off her fingers. "I can sit quietly in a room. I can listen to boorish speeches without yawning. I can quote abominable poetry and abominably play allegrettos. What use am I to anybody?"

"Don't say that."

"Why not? What use am I to someone like you?—industrious and talented and going places."

"What _use?_ Do you not know what a dear thing your friendship is to me? Isn't there value enough in the happiness you bring?"

"Do I?" she chokes, searching his eyes, and instantly follows it with, "No, there isn't."

She paces ahead of him. When she slows and lets him rejoin her, he says, "What will you do?"

"My aunt is triumphant at last. I must marry. Auction myself off like cattle at market. I've a useless dowry and no title, so I suppose I should give thanks for my face." She looks straight ahead. He watches the lines of her throat as it pulses and tightens. She says miserably, "Will you not speak, Mr. Stringer?"

He's never felt so helpless, so insignificant, so angry at his birthright. His voice, when he manages to summon it, is quiet. "What am I to speak of, miss?"

She turns toward him then. Tears are standing in her eyes.

He speaks low. "You are a member of the peerage—"

"I don't care about my accursed bloodline!"

He casts his eyes down and presses his lips tightly together.

She takes a deep breath and tries to clear her face. She puts on her colorless voice, the one she used the first time they ever exchanged words. "The last time I told a man I would live penniless if it meant a life at his side, he told me to marry wealth. And here I thought I'd learned my lesson."

He is anguished. "Miss Denham. My father had debts. Not a lot, but enough to do for me. I'm a foreman with nothing to offer you but dreams and ambitions. It's a romantic notion, giving up everything for love, but you can't eat dreams and ambitions. Even the house isn't my own. It'd be a step down in the world for you in every way. More than a step, a plummet! And I—I'd be ashamed. Ashamed to be husband to a woman I can't take care of. Ashamed to make her my wife when I knew the sort of life I was imprisoning her in."

"Isn't it enough that you make me happy?"

"No. It isn't."

"And I can't bear the thought of being a burden." She says dully, "Then we agree."

He can feel the words leeching out of his heart to gather in his lungs, reaching up through his throat and choking him like kelp, salty at the back of his tongue: all the words that keep him awake at night, words he can never say to her. "Yes, miss."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Stri—" Her words stick in her tear-thick throat. She turns away.

He walks back down the path thinking he'd like nothing better than to drown in the peaceful waters of the pond and not have to wake up tomorrow and all the days after. He wonders how a heart can hurt so badly and still keep beating.

The fountain doesn't quite cover the sound of her sobs as he leaves.

-

Sometimes the devil likes to twist the screw. It's not three days later that he is walking alone along the clifftop, letting the wind drown out all sound and thought, when in the distance he sees her unmistakable figure moving slowly down the path toward him.

She is still far off enough that he could turn around without being noticed. He nearly does, but her mere presence is a siren call and he is helpless in its grasp.

He keeps walking until the blur that is her face resolves into features - until he can see the shine of her hair - until he can see the freckles that curve along her jaw. She stops a few steps from him: slight and pale in her windswept mourning drapery.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears. He attempts and fails to smile. "Miss Denham."

"Mr. Stringer."

For a few moments they simply look at each other. There are dark circles beneath her eyes; he knows he is a mirror image. Her mouth is unsmiling, but it's not her pursed impertinence that slants it downward. The same wind that pushes her hair off of her forehead serves to whip his curls into his eyes, stealing even these last few moments he may gaze on her freely.

"When do you depart for London?"

"Tomorrow. The season starts next week."

"I see. I wish you well."

Her eyes hold his. "And I you."

He cannot seem to form the words that comprise a farewell. Evidently she can't either, or won't. She turns without another word and begins to go back the way she came. He retraces his own steps, deaf to the wind, now.

When he finally permits himself to look back she is far up the cliff path, no more than a dot of black against the green, and dark in the high distant sky are stormclouds rolling in.

-

The news comes from Sidney Parker, who is returned triumphant to honeymoon with his bride in the place they met and fell in love.

James is at Trafalgar House, paying his respects to Charlotte, when he hears Miss Denham's name from the corner where the brothers stand talking. Tom and Mary Parker go ashen and turn as one to look at him.

His stomach drops. He knew this news had to arrive eventually, but this is unbearably fast.

"What's happened?" he says, and feels all the blood in his body turn cold as the winter sea when Sidney opens his mouth again.

"She's quite ill, might not make it," and after that the words don't register all at once but in fragments and loops: _rain, half the night—might not make—fighting—quite ill—not make it—nigh on a week._

"Take my carriage, old boy," says Tom Parker.

James is never sure if he manages the words to thank him. All he knows is within minutes he is on the road to London with an address clutched in his hand and a ceaseless prayer on his lips.

-

The doctor takes one look at his wild-eyed state and lets him into the sickroom. He would be gladder if the allowance hadn't given rise to his last memory of his mother. If he's being granted access to a lady's bedchamber it means they have very little hope at all.

It is a nightmare come to life. She is terrifyingly white and barely breathing. They tell him she hasn't opened her eyes since the previous evening.

He helps however he can and gets out of the way when he cannot. What he doesn't do is leave the room, afraid—that they won't let him back in, or that she'll slip away the moment his back is turned. He keeps watch in a chair or on his knees by her bed. He begs her to wake, begs heaven to wake her. The minutes of his vigil blend into hours blend into days.

Her sweat-soaked naiad hair spreads across her pillow. He watches her sink further and further into the murky deep.

-

A faint touch on his arm. His head jerks up from where it has settled on her sheets, terror striking his heart even before his eyes are fully open—that she is gone and they are rousing him to tell him.

His eyes meet hers: open and blinking and clear hazel-green.

It's all he can do to not bawl like an infant. She is still pale with exhaustion and too weak to move, but the pallor is gone from her skin. The fever has broken. "Esther," he utters, overcome.

She smiles faintly. He isn't even aware he has said her given name until she carefully answers, "James."

He clutches her hand and presses his lips to her fingers. Her voice is little more than a murmur: "I was so afraid you wouldn't come."

"You'll have trouble getting rid of me, I'm afraid."

"Good."

The doctor ought to be called, and the nurse, but it still seems too miraculous to be true. He's immobile, anxious, his eyes busily confirming all parts of her are recovering. She whispers that she's sure she looks a fright. How can she say that, how can she know what it is to look at her right now? Her eyes are _open_. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he says, throat closing.

She touches his cheek. Her thumb traces his cheekbone.

He half-rises, one knee still on the floor, and brings his face to hers. He cups her jaw gently and presses his mouth to her soft, loving one.

He keeps it brief. He doesn't want to overexert her. There will be plenty of time for all of that. Right now all that matters is that she grows well again.

The doctor is called. Soup is brought up. She is given a bath and put into a clean nightgown. The dirty linens are cleared and the curtains flung open. James is forcibly removed from the sickroom and lingers in the hallway like a boulder in the stream, as the nurse puts it. The townhouse which has waited with terrified, bated breath for the go-ahead on funeral preparations finds itself embarking on a day of rejoicing instead.

He sneaks back in when the others have cleared out and she is meant to be sleeping. She is waiting for him, and greets him with a smile that is markedly stronger than it was hours before. He breathes out in relief at the sight of it. Not a dream after all.

He sits on the bed beside her and takes her hands in his. "I've had a renewed offer of an apprenticeship here in London. It's not much—it won't _be_ much, not for a good while—"

"We will live penniless and scavenge food from the sea." She smiles up at him.

A strange shining happiness unlike anything he's ever felt is flooding through him like the rising tide. He bends his head and kisses her. _Two._ Someday he'll have done this so many times he'll have lost count altogether.

This new life will be a new challenge for them both. They have much to learn. It will be difficult and uncertain and painful at times.

Her fingers are linked through his and the sun is rising in her eyes.

It won't be easy. Of course it won't.

Nothing worth having ever is.


End file.
